Eliminating the Impossible
by 666PsychoCheddar999
Summary: Eric Dawson disappears after investigating an old house in London and Sherlock and John are on the case. But when Detective Inspector Smith and Detective Sergeant Noble show up to help, things get a little complicated, as Sherlock and John must accept that whatever remains, after eliminating the impossible, must be the truth.
1. Prologue: The Old House

Eliminating the Impossible

Prologue: The Old House

The door of the house creaked open slowly and a young, frightened face peeked in. This was the face of 16 year old Eric Dawson. He glanced around at the old, darkened ruin of what had once been a grand, old mansion and grinned, looking behind him.

"Come on. It's safe! Let's go!" he called behind him, pushing open the creaking door, which was in serious danger of falling off its hinges and stepped into the hallway.

A few seconds later, another young face poked through the door, a lot more apprehensive than the other. She cautiously stepped in behind Eric, who was already going up the main stairs to the second floor.

"Eric!" she whispered, a few steps behind him. "Can't we just go home? This place could come down at any minute!"

As if to reinforce her point, a stair creaked as Eric placed his foot on it and he stopped, looking back at the girl behind him.

"You didn't have to come at all, Kirsty. Now, shut up or leave." he hissed back, before turning back and carrying on up the stairs. Kirsty, hurt at his outburst, stood still for a while, before continuing up the stairs behind him.

They reached the second floor and gazed in wonder at all the art on the walls, all of the intricate patterns painted on the ceiling, now caked in dust and mould.

"This place must have been amazing once." said Eric, breathless as he imagined all sorts of people walking up and down these halls.

As he was casting his gaze, his eyes fell on a door at the end of the hallway. It was like all of the other doors on the second floor, but a slight, green glow was emanating from under it. His eyes widened with curiosity and he took a step towards it.

"Don't!" Kirsty cried, her breath becoming ragged and panicked. She wanted to go home, she wanted to leave.

Eric chose to ignore her completely this time and took another step towards the door. And another. And another. Until he reached the door. Kirsty stayed rooting to the spot, terrified and yet unable to move.

She watched as Eric turned the knob on the door and slowly entered. And then silence. Nothing.

"Eric?" she said, softly at first. Nothing. Then she called a little louder, "Eric?" And then she screamed his name, her voice cracking a little, "ERIC!?"

And then came his scream. And Kirsty sprinted down the stairs and out the front door, down the road. Tears streamed down her face but she couldn't go back. Not now. Not ever.

And at the window, it stood, watching her. Staring down at the little girl running away.

The Angel watched.


	2. A Good Old Fashioned Disappearance

Chapter One: A Good Old Fashioned Disappearance

"YES!" Sherlock almost squealed in delight as he leapt out of the chair he had been sitting in for the past eight hours. He had been thoroughly bored and was going to resort to shooting the wall again, when Lestrade had come in with something that he could help with.

John looked up from his newspaper as Sherlock Holmes skipped around the room like a child locked in a sweet shop and Detective Inspector Lestrade stood in the doorway, rolling his eyes and waiting for his favourite consulting detective to finish.

"A disappearance, John! In an old house! It's fantastic!" he grinned at his best friend and then immediately ran down the stairs to the front door. John slowly got out of his chair and put his coat on before leaving away, giving a polite smile to Lestrade. Lestrade followed, with a weary sigh and closed the door behind him.

* * *

Eventually, they reached the crime scene and Sherlock and Watson exited the car and stood in front of the grand old manor house.

"Merryford Manor." Sherlock began before anybody even had the chance to think about starting a sentence. "Built in 1735 but abandoned in 1912. Nobody knows why and nobody has bothered to investigate. Or, at least, there are no records that suggest so. In which case, this disappearance may not be the first at this location. Lestrade, are you going to stand there thinking about what you had for lunch or are you going to show me inside?"

Lestrade sighed again, counted to ten very quickly and showed them both inside.

There were all sorts of policeman and forensic analysts in the house already, dusting everywhere they could for fingerprints or some trace of where the boy had gone.

Sherlock didn't even stop to look and ducked right under the police line and headed up the stairs. He immediately deduced that the boy's last known location was through the door at the end of the hallway. Although, it was wide open and there were several police officers in there anyway, so it was hardly a difficult deduction.

He strolled in and what was immediately met with the surprisingly annoying man he knew as Anderson.

"Shut up, Anderson." Sherlock said, moving pas him before he even had time to speak, leaving him standing there like a lemon. John followed him in, smiling insincerely at Anderson and stood to the side of the room. He knew there was no point in trying to have a conversation with Sherlock at a crime scene. He would just get insulted, as always.

The consulting detective glanced around the room, searching for any signs that might elude to the boy's disappearance. He looked on the floor at the lime green carpet that would have been an eyesore even back when it was clean and saw three distinctive marks on it. Something had been stood there for a long time and only moved very recently.

"Hello! Sorry we're late!" a cheerful voice interrupted Sherlock, much to his irritation and his eye line shot back up to the doorway, where two new people stood. A man and a woman.

The man had hair that looked as if it had had all of the gel in Great Britain put in it and stuck up like a cockatiel. He wore an immaculately clean blue suit with a loose, red tie and had, as a stark contrast, a long, old and worn, brown overcoat. Oddly, he wore red converse trainers, which looked as worn as the coat and certainly wasn't something a police officer would wear.

The woman had long, ginger hair that came down to her chest and wore a red, leather jacket with a blue vest top underneath and blue jeans, with black boots. Sherlock only quickly skimmed her compared to how much he had examined the other man, as she looked pretty normal.

"This is a crime scene!" squawked Anderson in protest. "How did you-?"

The man rolled his eyes and pulled something from his pocket, looking a lot like a leather wallet of some kind and showed it to Anderson.

"Detective Inspector John Smith. And this is Detective Sergeant Noble. We've been assigned to this case. Any issues? No? Fantastic!" the man grinned goofily at Anderson, who looked positively bemused and promptly left the room, unable to take Sherlock and DI Smith in one day.

"Yes! Just…stand back everyone. Me and Do…Smith. Me and Smith will handle this. Yes. We will." Sergeant Noble announced to the room unnecessarily, as Smith began to examine the room for clues. Sherlock just stood silent and watched him, bamboozled, staring at the man who had hijacked his crime scene.

John, noticing the tension already beginning to rise, quickly made his way over to Sergeant Noble, holding out his hand in greeting.

"Doctor Watson." he smiled.

"Oh, hello!" Noble returned the smile and shook John's hand. "Sergeant Noble. That's me. Wait, why are you at a crime scene if you're a doctor?"

"Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes over there!" John replied, indicating Sherlock in a mock-grand entry style.

Noble's brow furrowed in confusion and she responded, "Consulting Detective? Pretty sure that's not an actual job."

"It's not." Smith spoke for the first time since he had entered the room, as he was currently lying on the floor and looking under a wardrobe with a torch that he seemed to have conjured from nowhere.

Suddenly, Sherlock sprang into action and marched over so that he was standing above Smith who was still examining under the wardrobe.

"I invented it." he proclaimed, with more than a slight air of pride.

"Oh. That's nice. I invented the television. Well, I say invented. I was doodling and-!" began Smith, before Sherlock interrupted him.

"The television was invented in 1926. Judging by your complexion and general appearance, you are no more than 36." stated Sherlock quite confidently. His confidence took a hit when Smith and Noble burst into sudden, hysterical laughter.

"36!" wheezed Noble, leaning against the wall for support, as her other hand rested on her stomach. Smith buried his face into the carpet, as his hand kept digging around under the wardrobe for something or other.

"What are you laughing at?" Sherlock demanded, his lip quivering in fury.

Smith's laughter suddenly stopped and he began to exclaim in surprise in excitement.

"Oh! Oh! Oh, hello! We might have something! Donna! Donna! Look at this!" Smith cried, standing up and taking a transparent, glass jar out of one of his coat pockets.

In his free hand, he had a few, tiny grains of stone, which he carefully tipped into the jar. He shook it a few times and rattled it around, grinning goofily once again. Donna just looked confused.

"So it's a few stones. What good does that do us, Doc…uh, Inspector?" she asked, squinting at the stones like they would reveal the secret.

"Let's get this to the, uh, lab." replied Smith, pocketing the jar and heading for the exit, followed by Donna. Before he was about to cross the threshold, he turned back to Sherlock.

"'Scuse me." he said, with a face like a disapproving teacher who had just caught one of their students eating in class. "My ID, please."

Sherlock's eyes widened in shock. John's lips tightened in anger.

"Sherlock!" he growled. "What have I told you about pickpocketing people? Especially the police!"

"No harm done, Doctor." Smith laughed for a split second and then stopped, like he just thought of an inside joke. "I will be needing it back, though. If you wouldn't mind, Sherlock."

Sherlock, slowly, and extremely reluctantly, reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out the brown, leather ID that he had pickpocketed from Smith. He threw it across the room and Smith caught it. Smiling, he looked at the two men and bid them farewell, leaving the room.

The moment he was gone, John walked over to Sherlock and smacked him in the arm.

"Pickpocketing the bloody police? What's wrong with you? You should be in prison for that!" he hissed, annoyed at how irresponsible his partner had been.

"It's not what's wrong with me, John. It's what's wrong with him." Sherlock replied, rather blankly, still looking at where Smith had exited.

"What are you on about now?"

"His ID, John."

"What about his ID?"

"It was blank."


End file.
